Question

All the faith he had had had had no effect on the outcome of his life.
meaning

Answer 1

While it may look like someone copied “had” and pressed the paste button a few too many times, this is actually an example of what happens when the past perfect tense gets used back-to-back. The first and third “hads” are the auxiliary verbs, while the second and fourth ones are the main verbs. Stylistically speaking, the sentence would probably be less confusing if written, “He had had a lot of faith, but it had had no effect on the outcome of his life,” but what fun is that?